you taught me the courage of stars
by dasseinhundin
Summary: Her body is a temple and her heart is a relic, and he worships her with reverence. [post-canon oneshot, M for safety] [Part 3 of the "aftermath" series]


**Alternate/Companion piece to my fics "aftermath" and "lumiére, darling". Set 6-7 years after the end of the series. Written to the song "Saturn" by Sleeping At Last.**

 **Rating: T+-** **M**

 _ **Trigger Warnings: Sensuality, vaguely implied sexual situations, all characters aged**_ ** _appropriately_.**

* * *

 **i.**

The curve of her hip is the edge of the world, his hand such a close fit against it that it leaves him in breathless awe. He dips her low and glides her across the dance floor, finding other places that offer his hands a sanctuary. The hollow of her elbow, the small of her back, the arc of the back of her neck; all are places of worship as they hold each other beneath the spotlights.

Her own hands will hold him too, feather-light and warm, and it matters not where they hold but the fact that they do makes him feel like a blessed man. He lifts her high and swings her back low and her arms surround him and her hands are small and cathartic, and when their dance is over he feels clean.

 **ii.**

He will watch her in the mirror as she watches him undo her hair. He is slow and diligent as his fingers pluck the pins from her hair like feathers, and he feels he has witnessed something sacred as the delicate red cascades down her back. It is soft and fragrant as he picks up her hairbrush and twines it around his fingers, and when he begins this quiet ritual he feels her eyes upon him like he feels the summer sun and breathes.

 **iii.**

He takes the time to kiss each fingertip as she reaches towards him, to adore the pads of her thumbs and to cradle her palms against his cheek. Her hands are small and soft and sweet, and it leaves him in wonderment as to how many hearts she's held within them. He knows that these fingers are knotted with many threads that link her to so many others, but he kisses the fourth finger of her left hand for he knows that this is where they are connected.

 **iv.**

In her eyes are oceans, immense and rolling and so, so blue. They are rainstorms that sweep him away in a tempest at the slightest gaze and throw him clear across the stars, without mercy and without warning. He is stricken by just how much he adores these eyes, and wonders how he hadn't recognized them all those years ago. She may have looked older and she may have been more graceful, but her eyes are endless in their depths and sincerity, and he is grateful that she lets him drown within them.

 **v.**

The sound of her breath as he presses a feather-light kiss to her pulse is a symphony in itself. The thrum of her heart is a thunderous percussion in the cage of her ribs when he adores the column of her neck, long and slender and bobbing with silent hums. She was born a duck but he thinks in these moments that she is a swan, for the dip of her throat is nothing short of graceful. He follows it with dedication and offers his devotion against her collarbone.

 **vi.**

Her name is a hymn that he sings over and over against the silk of her skin, her sighs a benediction. His hands ghost over her shoulders and journey down the gentle arc of her back, clumsy fingers undoing each button and tie of her costume with dedication.

The rustling chiffon is a whisper in the space between, her eyes still dazzling and as bright as the spotlights and always, always fixed on him. Her freedom is a hushed breath through petal lips, and as he makes his pilgrimage he saves her pointe shoes for last.

 **vii.**

Her toes are not beautiful. They are dry and cracked and littered with the scars of blisters and marks from where her pointe shoes have bitten in. Her ankles are dusted shades of blues and purples from the days when she pushes herself too hard, and it is because they are not beautiful that he worships them with fervor.

They are worn and sturdy feet that flow into thin but hardwearing ankles, feet that have worked to stand on their own and to be strong enough to carry the weight of countless others. He cups her calf in his hand and presses his lips to the top of her foot, lingering where the ribbons cross her ankle, and he makes sure that she knows that these are not the feet of a delicate woman but the feet of a benevolent soul.

 **viii.**

She kisses him firmly and without doubt, her love a supernova that leaves him blind and stumbling for purchase. She is overwhelming in her honesty and endearing in her stubbornness, and he feels for a moment with a stinging fear that his heart is not nearly enough to offer. He can write and he can dance, and he can love her with a love too frail and too fierce and too much, but she is divine and he is flawed, and he can never possibly be enough.

But still she says his name and still she kisses him with a selfishness he cannot help but mirror, and he is firm in his resolve to forever try and give her the world that she has so rightly earned.

 **ix.**

She is a universe, small and frail and strong and vast and endless. He kisses the stars in her eyes as his hands traverse the cosmos, calloused and shaking and entirely unworthy. The plain between her shoulders and the curve of her spine is as expansive as the night sky, and he charts her constellations with ink-stained fingertips until she exhales galaxies.


End file.
